1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates broadly to systems and methods for providing communication between a vehicle or other platform and interested information consumers. More particularly, the present invention concerns a transceiver for facilitating two-way wireless communication between a baseband application, which is associated with a mobile or fixed space, air, water, or ground vehicle or other platform, and other nodes in a wireless network, wherein the transceiver provides baseband communication networking and necessary configuration and control functions along with application interface, baseband waveform processor, transmitter, receiver, and antenna functions to enable the wireless communication.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is often desirable to receive, integrate, and make available information on a global scale. Such information might be produced in any of a number of different “grid” contexts, including, for example, vehicular contexts such as space, air, water, surface, and sub-surface grids, or location contexts such as world-wide, regional, local, and immediate grids. Increased capability and efficiency is possible when information from these different grids is integrated and available substantially anywhere, at any time, to any (authorized) user via a “global information grid”. Unfortunately certain classes of mobile and fixed platforms are not currently integrated into this global grid, leaving a glaring gap or hole in the overall communication and information exchange and undermining global connectivity and interoperability among the various interested information consumers.
For example, the global information grid in a military context might integrate and make available information received from satellites, long-range and short-range aircraft, ships, wheeled and tracked vehicles, or foot soldiers and having to do with theater, regional, strategic, or tactical conditions. Unfortunately, several smart and dumb munitions and missiles used by the Armed Forces are not integrated into the global grid. As a result, command and control, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and weapon delivery platforms suffer from fragmented perspectives, stratified “kill-chain” processes, “stove-piped” infrastructure, poor interoperability and interconnectivity, limited infrastructure availability, limited data availability, and limited scope. Thus, there is a need for a data link transceiver for incorporation into these weapons in order to enable comprehensive global connectivity and interoperability between the various services, agencies, and policy makers.
Current commercial off the shelf (COTS) products do have limitations. For example, COTS 802.11 network hardware presents such issues as eavesdropping, security, intrusion, interference, range, fixed quality of service, latency, throughput, power efficiency, limited bandwidth, number of users, message prioritization, multiple access, fading RF channels, coverage area, environmental sensitivity, fixed modulation, etc. The availability of 802.11 based hardware has made it the premier choice for many researchers for the development of a wireless network to support network centric warfare. However, the ever increasing demands posed by the applications are stretching the 802.11 protocol beyond its intended capabilities. For example, 802.11 provides for no control over allocation of resources, and the default allocation policy is ill suited for multi-hop networks. Furthermore, senders with heterogeneous data rates can affect the system throughput adversely. The 802.11 allocates an equal number of transmission opportunities to every competing node. However, this fairness criterion can lead to low throughput when nodes transmit at widely different rates. This unfairness or bandwidth sharing presents itself as a significant quality of service problem for 802.11 networks. In addition, the 802.11 has latency problems when using the combination of voice, data and isochronous data packets at data rates of 1 and 11 Mbps. These factors along with the processing for handling security and encryption have negative impacts upon latency. This becomes a significant problem when targeting moving objects.
More generally, due to the above-identified and other problems and disadvantages encountered in the prior art, a need exists for a mechanism for incorporating and making available information generated by those mobile and fixed platforms not currently included in the global information grid.